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Joining the Laysan albatross as icons of ocean plastic pollution are sea turtles, which consume bellyfuls of debris while swimming through Earth’s five great ocean garbage patches.
About 0.25 percent of all plastic ends up in the ocean. That might not sound like much, but humanity produces about 260 million tons of plastic a year. Tiny fractions add up fast. Oceanic plastic is pulled into the center of rotating currents, or gyres, where it doesn’t degrade, but breaks into smaller and smaller pieces. Some pieces end up in plankton and algae, or drift to the ocean floor. Others are mistaken for food by turtles.
The phenomenon is described in a new research review (.pdf) published by the Global Sea Turtle Network and spotlighted by the fifth International Marine Debris Conference, now ongoing in Honolulu, Hawaii.
One anecdote in the article, written by biologists Wallace Nichols of the California Academy of Science and the University of British Columbia’s Colette Wabnitz, stands out. “Relief of gastrointestinal obstruction of a green turtle off Melbourne beach, Florida, resulted in the animal defecating 74 foreign objects over a period of a month, including four types of latex balloons, different types of hard plastic, a piece of carpet-like material, and two 2- to 4-mm tar balls, they wrote.
Like so many environmental problems, ocean plastic seems overwhelming. But countries like China, South Africa and Thailand are already taxing or banning single-use plastic bags, which pose the greatest threat to turtles.
Individuals can help by cutting back on bag and bottle use, and finding ways to avoid plastic. Someday, perhaps, humanity might quit throwing away plastic altogether. Wrote Nichols, “There is no stopping the ingenious human mind.”
Originally posted by Crakeur
no, they can't. the oceans are massive and the water is constantly moving. skimming the water would prove to be futile. now add the abundance of life in said oceans and your skimmers would do more harm than good.
the easy route is to teach our children to not be the pigs that those that came before them are (and were). There's no hope for the older generations but our kids, and their kids, might actually be capable of not destroying entire species.
Originally posted by havok
I respectfully disagree with your first comment.
Originally posted by havok
If our global govt's can waste trillions of dollars on wars...
They can spend billions on cleanup.
If the pacific garbage patch can stay in place long enough to be viewed from a satellite...
It can be salvaged.
Originally posted by havok
Our primary goal, as a race, should be to take care of what we have been given.
Instead, we ALL take it for granted.
It is truly disgusting.
And I'm no tree-hugger.
Magnificent thread.
Originally posted by Crakeur
the easy route is to teach our children to not be the pigs that those that came before them are (and were). There's no hope for the older generations but our kids, and their kids, might actually be capable of not destroying entire species.
Originally posted by havok
PS: Kangaroo, I love the invader zim avatar. My fav tv series. Ha!
Originally posted by CanadianDream420
Originally posted by Wertdagf
a plastic devouring bacteria, fungus, or alge will soon evolve... or even be invented.
Problem solved. hahahahahahahahhahahahahahahahahh
Originally posted by CoherentlyConfused
There was a post with a video back in September about this that first brought my attention to it. Apparently, this has been a bad problem for decades, yet I never hear anything about it...except here. So much yip-yapping and fighting going on about so many stupid things while our Earth slowly dies. And we wonder why it gets so upset.
Plastic Bag video
Originally posted by Silcone Synapse
The whole world should be using that bio degradable corn "plastic" by now IMO...
You can make all sorts of packaging/bags/wraps with it.
I have a few and they are as good if not better than regular plastic.
They last well,and are as strong as plastic bags.
And they would simply dissovle back into organic matter in the oceans.
Sad what we are doing,treating the oceans like the planets unofficial trash dump.
Will we ever learn before its too late?
www.smithsonianmag.com...
www.icis.com... (video)